


BBC Sherlock and the Politics of Identity

by doctornerdington



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-24
Updated: 2014-01-24
Packaged: 2018-01-09 21:27:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1150971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctornerdington/pseuds/doctornerdington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally posted to Tumblr.</p>
    </blockquote>





	BBC Sherlock and the Politics of Identity

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to Tumblr.

I’m going to wade into deep waters here. I’ve been following lots of delicious Tumblr discussions lately about sexual diversity (or the lack) on Sherlock, and how progressive or regressive the show’s politics are. These are important things to talk about, and I need to add my two cents. (Obviously, my reading here is influenced by my own life and sexual/political/social orientations, so ymmv.)

A lot of fan thought and energy goes into the question of various characters’ identities, especially sexual. Is John really straight? Bisexual, maybe? Is Sherlock gay? Asexual, perhaps? Irene is a lesbian. Mycroft is… what, exactly? Et endless cetera. We play with it in fic, and we discuss it in meta. This can be fun, it can be infuriating, and it can be exhausting. We want cultural products that reflect the richness of our own lives; we want representation (and validation) of our own identities; we want more interesting narratives than boy-meets-girl on endless loop. We want bravery, and when it feels like a show we love is capitulating to a heterosexist monoculture, we get understandably upset.

So, it makes sense that we are hugely invested in the identities of these characters, and the political ramifications of how they are portrayed. The equation presumably goes something like this: gay characters = gay visibility = social acceptance = social change = increased security for gay people. In that sense, identity politics are absolutely politically expedient and necessary, and have brought about a degree of progress in social justice for a lot of marginalized groups. (This varies by country, obviously.) In a broad context like that, I see their value. There’s a dark side to this, though, and I’m far from the only one to see it. Identity politics, expedient though they may be, are incredibly problematic on a microlevel. Michael Rectenwald explains, this type of framework "treats identities as static entities, and its methods only serve to further reify those categories. It aims to liberate identity groups, rather than aiming to liberate them from identity itself. Identity politics fails not because it begins with various subaltern groups and aims at their liberation, but because it ends with them and thus cannot deliver their liberation. It makes identities and their equality with other 'privileged' groups the basis of political activity, rather than making the overcoming of the alienated identity, for themselves and all identity groups, the goal" (“What’s Wrong with Identity Politics?”).

To parse, identity politics would have it that the category of people identified as “gay,” which, in this formulation, is a clearly-defined and limited set, are equal to that category of people defined as “straight.” It does not question the categories of gay and straight themselves; rather, it forces people to pick one, and stick to it. Forever and ever, amen. Those that don’t, face discipline. (Been there, done that, trust me, not fun.) And this, I think, is what infuriates John so much when people keep asking if he’s gay – keep policing those identity boundaries.

I think a lot of John’s frustration with being called “gay,” his increasingly angry refusals, has something to do with his frustration with the language of identity politics. He’s not gay. We need to take him at his word. That identity category does not suit his experience or internal life. But every time he issues a denial, it seems to have the effect of downplaying his relationship with Sherlock – which is, for most of the series, the primary relationship in his life. He doesn’t have the language for his experience: he’s not gay, but he “doesn’t mind” a drunken grope; he’s married to Mary, but he has an equally loving and primary relationship with Sherlock, who might be asexual, or might be something else. In the context of identity politics, this does not compute. But this show that we’re watching? This is their love story, all the same. Language fails him. Identity politics police him. And he’s left without words, in frustrated incoherence. The love story isn’t subtext, but nor can it be explicit.

Sherlock is doing something very, very sophisticated. The show is, in the words of Linda Nicholson, “rebelling against the disciplining effects of a politics of identity” (Intro, Social Postmodernism: Beyond Identity Politics). It’s a love story that constantly highlights its own inability to speak that story within the social context it inhabits.

This is not, after all, the love that dare not speak its name. It’s the love that has no name, apart from itself – which is, simply, love.


End file.
